Synkroniciti is ecstatic to announce that Scott Ferry’s “it is quiet in the house” won our “Belonging” Poetry Contest! There were many fine poems that came in for this call, some from poets who won the contest within the past year and aren’t eligible to compete yet. Scott won the poetry contest in “Empowered!” two years ago and has once again stunned us with his wordsmithing.
Finalists for the contest were: The Spanish Hammam, Katharine Weinmann; Reflections, Doug Jacquier; Oysters, Sandra Salinas Newton; The Basics, D. Dina Friedman; God’s Bits of Wood, Jonathan Chibuike Ukah; it is quiet in the house, Scott Ferry; Synagogue 1962, Joanne Durham; and Breath of the Lord, Robert L. Dean, Jr.
Scott is well known for his short, searing poems which are tender, powerful and vulnerable. “it is quiet in the house” is a longer piece, but sacrifices none of those qualities. It explores the internal impulses behind religion and our wish to connect to something bigger than ourselves and to better ourselves and our circumstances. Led by his poetic muse and his daughter’s performance at mass and inspired by rituals he doesn’t espouse, Scott extends his intention for betterment to his fellow humans and creatures, something religion often professes but has difficulty actuating. He weaves together the abstract and the concrete by using sensory metaphors paired with naked vulnerability, building to a final crescendo that is rhythmic and chantlike as he works out his own credo, his own relationship to god, the universe, and humanity.
I’ll have an excerpt in Scott’s upcoming artist feature, but you’ll want to read the whole thing. You can read “it is quiet in the house” in Synkroniciti’s “Belonging” issue, available here: https://synkroniciti.com/the-magazine/purchase-individual-issues/. The issue comes out September 15th.
Scott Ferry helps Veterans heal as a RN in the Seattle area. His most recent book (his ninth) is a collaboration with Daniel McGinn titled Fill Me with Birds on Meat For Tea Press. His book of prose poems, Sapphires on the Graves, is upcoming from Glass Lyre Press. More of his work can be found @ferrypoetry.com.
I heartily recommend his poetry books–he currently has nine. He also does photography and posts interesting shots on his FB page, often with the words “look up.” His profile photo in this issue–seen in this post, is entitled “Spring.” Scott gives us different ways of looking at things.